Strength: Alex Song being absent is a blessing in disguise for me because grafters like Song really do not do that well against AM like Lionel Messi, e.g. Barcelona (Ronaldinho) vs. AC Milan (Gennaro Gattuso) 2006.
These type of AM are not direct & become extremely difficult for the grafters to apply there normal game, they end up being yellow carded very early in the match and spend there entire match trying to apply themselves intelligently instead of physically. Arsenal started playing well when Song was subbed.
The other problem with grafter based defensive systems is that they are very linear and deal with a player at a time instead of marking the whole team, hence Inter Milan did not man mark Messi or dedicate anyone to him, they just applied a zonal marking system called "Caging" and controlled how he received and distributed the ball. To mark Messi you need a Sergio Busquets type of midfielder instead of a Javier Mascherano.
Weaknesses: Without Theo Walcott & RVP having questionable fitness level - it is clear Arsenal’s counter attacking would be compromised.
Barcelona:
Strength: There ‘Playmaking Style Total Football’ designed by Rinus Michels aka “The Engineer” puts tremendous pressure on any team coming to Nou Camp. Possession football oriented teams are the ones who normally receive the heaviest scores at Nou Camp, which explains such high score against Spanish teams as compared to other European teams and this does not help Arsenal much.
Weakness: Carles Puyol, Víctor Valdés and Gerard Piqué are out, now this is a crucial weakness because according to “Playmaking Style Total Football” changing to CB and the keeper is like changing 6 players in the squad. The keeper mostly plays as sweeper, Pique usually players as a CF when they are failing to score, Puyol sometimes plays as midfielder.
Conclusion is should Arsenal park the bus, due to absence of Pique they could get away with a scoreless draw or a 2 nil win.
By Prof "The Chosen One" Matwetwe
